The depressing possible final phrase from a head coach

If this was Scott Skiles’ last home game as the Milwaukee Bucks coach, and there are reports out there that it was, he and the Bucks certainly went out with a whimper.

In his final post game conference he handled questions the same way he always did. Until the last question. A reporter asked if he liked what he saw from his younger players in terms of their professionalism and attitudes.

Skiles stared straight ahead for several seconds before finally replying with a mumbled, “I don’t know.”

If those are indeed the unenthusiastic final words we hear from Skiles after a Bucks home game, it does make the pieces started to come together with a bit more ease.

If he’s not certain that he likes what he sees in the most basic terms, professionalism and attitude, from his younger players, that’s a pretty big strike in the con side for keeping his current job. Young players is a vague term, but the Bucks have a lot of young players. Everyone from Tobias Harris to Brandon Jennings to Ekpe Udoh could be referred to as a “young player.”

There are only 30 NBA head coaching jobs. Once someone moves into one of those jobs, it’s difficult to consider that they might remove themselves. Who steps away from such a high profile and difficult to obtain job? This seems like it’s been an especially trying season for Coach Skiles though. The Stephen Jackson situation. Brandon Jennings’ bizarre protest game and month long struggle that followed. A shift in team dynamic from an Andrew Bogut defensive centerd squad to the Jennings/Monta Ellis centered offensive powered middling team.

Apparently he’s seen enough.

It’s hard to blame him after a “meek” effort from the Bucks against the Philadelphia 76ers’ B Team.

Evan Turner torched the Bucks for 29 points, 13 rebounds and six assists. Jodie Meeks dropped in 27 points on his old mates himself.

Milwaukee’s only regular starter to get minutes, Jennings, struggled to a 19 point six assist night while Harris looked comfortable offensively once again with 15 points and 11 rebounds. Defensively, Harris has tons of work to do, but at the very least, he’s a capable offensive player right now. How quickly he learns on the other end will be what decides his future.

As for the future of the rest of the Bucks, we’ll know a lot more in the next week.

Jeremy Schmidt writes the Milwaukee Bucks blog Bucksketball.com. He’d love it if you stopped by every time you wanted to buy something on Amazon and gave him some click-through love on the banner up on the top right. Also –Twitter.

19 Comments

@Wombat02 Beno has done a great job of setting up these young players all year. A lot of missed and bad passes (plays) that seemed to show a real disconnect, but that’s why these guys aren’t starters. They need a bit more practice.

I think Skiles may be an old soul.. there does seem to be a disconnect (or lack of trust) between him and some of the young players he coaches.. same thing happened his last year in Chicago when he had young talent like Deng, Noah, Gordon, Shannon Brown, and Tyrus Thomas.. he just lost them somewhere

I don’t really know what to make of Scott Skiles and his comments after the game. I don’t really have an opinion of him either way. In some ways I like his coaching, but in other ways I can see why people want him out the door. I like the potential that some of the Bucks younger players possess like Harris, Leuer, Sanders, and Udoh, but these guys are obviously still pretty un-polished and need some more practice. Hopefully a full offseason will give them a chance to work on their games, work-ethics, and attitudes (cough, cough, Larry Sanders, cough).

So my guess is Boylan will probably just get promoted because that’s the cheapest option, I’d like to see D’antoni hired because this is the lowest his stock will ever be and the guy can coach offense, the Bucks probably aren’t going to win any titles so they might as well score 110 points per game and be fun to watch.

SVG is a darkhorse for a coach, he’ll cost more but he’ll bring better profile and some success to the team, he’s already lived in Wisconsin for like 5 years so I imagine he’d be okay with being here. Plus the Bucks are probably the best destination for a Free Agent coach outside of LA since im guessing Del Negro will be fired

A mumbled “I don’t know” when asked about the younger players’ professionalism and attitudes? Hardly what you like to hear from the head coach responsible for their development. I’d like to know what Skiles was thinking in those pensive moments before giving that answer. And really, I’d like to know his specific thoughts on each young player on the roster that will be back next year – Jennings, Leuer, Harris, Sanders, Udoh – what are their positive and negative attributes, in Skiles’ opinion? I’m guessing we won’t ever find out.

This is photo of best play of Celtics game.
Harris bounced the ball off Marqui Daniels head, and then made the basket. It was not intentional on the part of Harris, but it was pretty funny if you’re a Bucks fan.

Jeremy: The thing is, we won’t know what the future of the Bucks is anytime soon. The entire franchise has to ask themselves one question: Is our goal to win a championship or sneak into the playoffs every season? If the latter, keep generally the same strategy, extend Hammond, keep the team as is, and move on.

If the goal is to win a championship, this team can’t stand. The Bucks have no legitimate Center, no legitimate All-Star, and they’re just good enough to never have a good lottery pick. They would have to blow the team up. They missed their chance to trade Ilyasova at the deadline when his value was through the roof, now they might get nothing for him. They can only hope to do a meager sign-and-trade. This approach would require deciding who on the current team can be built around, and by my estimation, that might be no one at this juncture.